Singapore is lagging in flu preparedness.

Singapore is lagging in flu pandemic preparedness, compared to Britain. This article here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/28/swine-flu-mexico-scotland

...shows that the UK has 33 million courses of anti-influenza medication stockpiled for a pandemic. That is enough to treat 55% of the population. As I noted, however, in my previous article, Singapore only has enough drugs to treat 10% of the population. Clearly, Singapore seems to care less for its people than the UK does, for its.

Presumably, Singapore's relative lack of drug defenses against flu are due to a cost saving mentality: they would rather not overspend on something that may never be used, is how I think, they "think". Of course, they haven't given much to thought to what would happen if they have grossly underestimated treatment needs in the event of a pandemic (which they have...since in a true pandemic, treatment would most probably be needed for greater than 10% of a population. Western Samoa, for instance, showed 90% infection, in the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.)

So, Singaporeans can be happy in the knowledge that their government prefers to save money, rather than save lives. You can all rest assured that the national reserves will be there when you need them. The only problem is, since they have saved so much money on drugs never bought, you might not be there to enjoy the national reserves when the day they come to be needed.

Seriously, though, I think more forethought should be given to worst case scenarios - and less to how to cut costs and be minimalist about investing in the health of the nation. Should Singapore ever truly underestimate a pandemic, the nation might not survive in its former state. Britain has clearly thought of these worst case scenarios and has enough drugs on hand to treat over half the population. If Britain can do it, why hasn't Singapore?

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to:http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

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Who is international aid to Myanmar feeding?

The callous imagination of the Myanmar junta goes beyond one's cruellest imagination. Latest reports suggest that food aid to Myanmar is being confiscated by the junta, with some, at least, confirmed to have been sent to a military warehouse.

The high-grade nutritional biscuits that were sent, were kept for the military - and instead, low-grade "tasteless" biscuits made in Myanmar were distributed. Thus, the good food that is sent is ending up in military bellies (or intended to end up there) - and bad, even "rotting food", as witnesses described the rice that was being given out, is being distributed instead.

So, now the international community has an even bigger moral dilemma. Should food aid be sent at all if it is not going to reach the needy? To send food aid and have it feed the military is to do nothing for the endangered and will only serve to strengthen their oppressors. Here we have a situation in which the international will to help the hungry and threatened, is being perverted by their ruling regime to become an effort which will only bolster those who oppress them.

France, Britain and Germany are of the opinion that aid should be forced on the junta. That is, the international community has a moral imperative to ensure that the endangered are saved - even if this means going against the will of the ruling military junta.

I tend to agree with them: logic bids me so. If our mission is to save the 2 million now in danger from an unfortunate death, they must receive food and medical aid. The junta will not give them either food or medicine and will, in fact, confiscate both, for its own purposes. Therefore neither food nor aid should be given to the junta to distribute, nor allowed to fall into their hands. The only way these 2 million people are going to be saved is if the international community ignores the junta and goes in directly. Unless this intervention consists solely of air drops (which might be confiscated), any aid workers would have to be accompanied by armed escort, lest this effort leads to violent confrontation.

So, the options in the situation are limited. To continue to deliver aid without workers to distribute it is only to ensure that nothing gets done for the afflicted - and that the regime have fuller bellies. To continue to stand by and wait for the junta to wake up and grow a conscience is to ensure that people will continue to die by the thousand. There is, therefore, only one logical answer: to go in with aid irrespective of the wishes of the ruling morons, oops, elite. That latter option could lead to confrontation but given the backward nature of the society, I am sure that advanced powers would have little difficulty managing the junta's response.

It is interesting to note who favours forced aid: Britain, France and Germany - among the most advanced humanitarian democracies in the world. It is even more telling who opposes it: Russia and China - two countries most like Myanmar. Indeed, on a footnote, China is now opposing foreign aid workers who wish to assist in their earthquake disaster - the exact same response as Myanmar. It seems that repressive regimes the world over, simply don't want their people to learn that foreigners are a much kinder bunch than they have been painted. If they ever learn the equation that democracy=concern for others, their repressive regimes are doomed. They would rather their people die by the millions than that they should ever learn what free countries are really like.

I dearly hope that someone has the strength to take the strong decisions that need to be made, if 2 million people in Myanmar are not to fall to hunger, lack of shelter and rampant disease.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and five months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and ten months, and Tiarnan, twenty-seven months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind, niño, gênio criança, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Rapid drop in IQ of Thai children.

There is this idea that the world is getting smarter, due to the Flynn Effect. This was so, superficially, for several decades, as children simply got better at taking IQ tests. Yet, at the same time, there was evidence of dysgenic change - that is the increasing frequency of poorer genetic endowments, in comparison to better ones. Quite simply, average performance on tests was improving (perhaps due to more exposure to such tasks), but the underlying genetic quality was in decline. This has been so for a very long time...in the West since the 19th century, at the least.

The problem is that smarter people tend to have fewer kids, since they tend to be the ones focussed on careers and personal ambitions, delaying families and ultimately having smaller ones. This has long been so.

Recent studies are showing a very different trend in the intellectual function of today's children, than the legend of the Flynn Effect suggests. A King's College London study that I referred to in another post, proved a 25% drop in cognitive function (it wasn't an IQ test, as such), in children of the same age compared across 15 years. That was a very disturbing result. Is this a British problem, or a global problem?

Well, a 2002 study performed in Thailand indicates that the problem is not localized.

In 1997 the average IQ of Thai children was 96.5 in Bangkok, 92.3 in the central region, 87.9 in the North. Five years later, in 2002, the figures were 94.6 in Bangkok, 88.8 in the central region and 84.2 in the North.

The children in both groups were 6 to 12 years old. Clearly, this is a very marked change in so short a time.

Should this trend continue for long, it would deletriously affect the whole future of the Thai nation. It would only be a matter of decades before the country would completely lack the mental wherewithal to perform many important functions at all. Where will the doctors come from? The scientists? The engineers? A small shift in mean iq greatly reduces the numbers of the gifted and talented - much more so than is widely realized.

It is likely that other countries face the same problem: the decline in intelligence of their children. I will try to gather relevant figures.

From this data, and the King's College data, the futures of Britain and Thailand promise to be very different from their presents. It is a difference no-one would welcome.

The question is: is this a completely global decline?

I really hope not.

However, I worry that it is - because the social forces that lead to just such a decline are common to all countries.

The future may not be as bright (in every sense of the word) as many people think...

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and one month, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and seven months, and Tiarnan, two years exactly, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

A lesson in economics for a child.

My childhood was not like my son's is turning out to be. For a start his is in a different country and this makes more difference than I had thought it would.

Today is an example. At school a circular was sent around to all the children. It was a slip of paper, rather oddly, containing economic information. It told these primary school children that prices were to rise in the school food outlets, "owing to the rise in the price of flour". I found this stupefying. Not even children are immune to economic alarm. Here they were being told a) their food prices were going to rise and b) a reason and justification for why this was to be. Amazing. I don't remember my childhood being like that. We were completely insulated from economic information. Maybe that is why we didn't all grow up being obsessed by money-making at the expense of any other social or human value.

I can see, now, why so many Singaporeans grow up to be concerned with money and money alone. The indoctrination that money is everything begins in primary schools with such subtle lessons as an economics lesson masquerading as a slip of paper.

I have had a good look back at my own childhood and I don't remember a single corresponding incident. However, this may be because in government schools in my childhood the food was free to all. There were no price rises because there was no price in the first place. It was regarded as a social boon that every child, no matter from what background, or however poor they might be, would receive at least one "good" meal a day. I say "good" because the food was, of course, of institutional quality.

It has taken my son's experience with this financial notice, from his school, to awaken me to how sheltered children in Britain were in the seventies and eighties, from economic realities. Is this a good thing, or a bad thing? Well, it depends what you value. If you value a child's peace of mind and ability to relax and enjoy the only period of their life that could reasonably be free from worry (if only we would let them be)...then I think it is best that children are not troubled by economic understanding. It would only add to their worries. However, if you wish to create a nation of people who begin to be concerned with money at the earliest possible age and who will go on to make it their primary concern throughout life - then, by all means, send little price rise notices and explanations around the school for the children to become economically awakened.

This method seems to work. I had a conversation about economics today with Ainan. (A very unusual occurrence.) He was rather surprised at the contents of the slip of paper and felt a need to discuss it with me.

The economic awakening has begun. To where will it lead?

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and one month, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and seven months, and Tiarnan, two years exactly, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Can Britain survive trash culture?

I am constantly amazed at the way expat British people, recently moved to Singapore, speak of the country I grew up in. It is not what it was, by a long way.


It is saddening to be told that all those forces that were just beginning to take hold when I was in school, have now triumphed, and become the dominant culture. A nation once known for breeding sophisticated "gentlemen", is now best known for the abundance of its yobs, or "Chavs" as they are now known.

Let me explain. The Chav represents all that was once regarded as base in the human. They revel in stupidity, actively hate all who are intellectual, have no respect for the law, for education, for employment (they often live on benefits and petty crime), or for anything that once was remotely considered a social value. Yet, this moronic creed is now the dominant culture in Britain: it is the nature of the "masses".

I left Britain almost eight years ago. It is now clear that, though I have often wanted to, I can never return. That is, the place that once I knew, is no more. Britain of today, does not resemble the Britain of only a few years ago.

The problem is only just beginning. The next generation of British kids are showing shocking signs of being subnormal, compared to the kids of only fifteen years before. There is a twenty-five per cent drop in intellectual function of the average British child compared to 1990 (according to a study of 10,000 children by Michael Shayler of King's College London). That means that, in a few short years, these rather intellectually impaired children (by recent historical standards) are going to become adults. They will add to the dumbing down of British culture. They in turn will become parents, and so the problem will grow, over time. Unless something effective - and rather major - is done, Britain promises to be a country without a future.

An insight into the minds of the people of each nation can be garnered from the kinds of comments they leave on my site. This morning, I found a handful of posts from the same person, from Lambeth, London. None of the posts were publishable. Some of them lacked capitalization and punctuation. None could be classified as sentences. But that wasn't what struck me. What struck me was their coarseness. Two comments consisted of nothing but expletives. That was the sum total of their ability to contribute to the debate of ideas that the internet - and blogging - should be about.

On reading them, and recalling what my colleagues recently arrived from the UK had told me, I was moved to write of the declining situation, in the UK - and to do a little research.

I found something, in my search that should appal all who have ever been a parent. I found the story of one "chav" who had won 9.7 million pounds in the lottery. He set about living "large", in a rather grotesque manner (for instance he appears to have bought 30 vehicles, so that they could be smashed to pieces in a demolition derby in his spacious garden). That, though crass, wasn't what worried me. My concern was his proud boast about his two year old daughter: "Her first words were f*** and s***." He thought it was great.

England was once a nation of refined and cultivated gentlemen, renowned throughout the world for their manners, wit and "breeding". Now, they have become a moronic breed who delight that their babies' first words (and therefore, implicitly, the words they had heard most frequently) should be two expletives. What hope is there of such a child growing up to be an adult of wit, manners and "breeding"?

How long can Britain hold its position in the world, when the quality of its people - in a very real sense - is in such decline?

Britain is a nation that once possessed a rich intellectual tradition. It produced world-class thinkers by the bundle. Its universities were among the best in the world. But now, it is a nation that loathes all that is intellectual. Thinking has become socially unacceptable. To sit in a pub, and speak intelligently, is to court a jeer at best, or a beer glass (broken), at worst. Only stupidity and vacuity are now socially permissible. The intellectual is on the run - and lives in perpetual hiding, marginalized in society, daring not to raise a voice, lest they be denounced and set upon.

Once a society has marginalized its thinkers, it cannot be long before such a civilization collapses. Britain has taken that step of marginalizing its best people. Not even mediocrities have taken their place. It is the idiots who have taken the reigns - it is they whose voice shouts loudly. Britain, is now a land of the lout.

I don't believe that anyone in a society should be marginalized - but if any class of people had to be marginalized - it should be the louts, not the thinkers.

Britain needs to step back from this particular abyss. It needs to discourage loutishness, to subdue the creed of the moron, encourage intellectual activity, reward brilliance, foster thinking. It needs, in short, to be what it used to be: a great nation, brimming with great people who dedicated their lives to serious endeavour (or at least, enough of them did so, to make it the leading nation it once was). It is time to shrug off this attack of idiocy - and return to the values and sophistication of yesteryear.

It won't be easy. It won't take place overnight. But if Britain is to survive as a nation worthy of the term, it must fight the decline of its people. It must urge them to better themselves, as people, and not just as economic units. If nothing is done, many of us will live to see the "decline and fall" of a once great nation.

The land that produced William Shakespeare, also produced the barbaric poster of expletives on my site. Would it not be a better nation, if it fostered more geniuses and less loutishness?

I hope, one day, to see, comments of wit, and brilliance, from the British Isles, as once might have been written. We will see just how long I have to wait.

(If you would like to read of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and eight months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and one month, or Tiarnan, eighteen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

The Open University is closed.

The Open University is a UK institution formed with the idea of opening up a tertiary education to people who would not otherwise be able to access it. Many have taken degrees while holding down full time jobs, pursuing their studies, at a distance, without having to be resident in a University (though they do have short-term residential modules, too). All in all, it sounds like a good idea...but it isn't flawless.

I decided to see just how open, the "Open" University really was. I wrote to them, telling them of Ainan, 7, and his need to continue his studies at a University, in the near future. How near that future is, depends on how long I can keep him satisfied at home, on my own resources - for no educational provision that he is receiving on a formal basis is presently meeting his needs. Obviously, I will not be able to keep him stimulated indefinitely: my home, for one, lacks a lab and there are many things I cannot teach him purely from the context of a book and his Dad. He teaches himself many things, too - but again, there are limits - for we don't have personal access to the equipment he would need to develop the practical side of his gifts.

Therefore, I am looking at the University issue, for Chemistry. I thought that the Open University might make it relatively uncomplicated to move on to higher studies since their courses were specifically designed for distance learning. Ainan would be able to pursue a degree with them, while handling whatever other matters he needed to attend to, here in Singapore. That was the idea, anyway.

However, after a few days, I received the following reply:

Dear Mr Cawley

Thank you for your email.

Study with the Open University is normally open to individuals over eighteen years of age; however, we do have a Young Applicants in Schools Scheme (YASS). Unfortunately, Singapore is outside of the area in which the YASS scheme is offered and therefore I am afraid we are unable to offer any study opportunities for your son.

I replied to them, but they didn't get back to me.

Thus, despite describing themselves as "Open" - and despite having been founded on a principle of opening up education to new people who do not have access, Ainan was refused on the basis of age - and bureaucracy. There is an allowance in their scheme for Young Applicants - but that only applies to the UK as far as I am aware.

It seems to me, that often with institutions, the spirit with which they were founded gets lost along the way - so it seems with the "Open" University. They were brought to being with an admirable purpose, but it is not true to say that they still fully serve it. Ainan is outside the norm with regards to his academic needs - a University founded on serving those who do not fit the norm, really, really should have made an exception to any rules that stand in his way: that would have been serving the spirit with which it was founded - and not the letter of any bureaucratic encumbrance that has since accreted.

Not many children need to go to University significantly early (except perhaps in America, where the academic demands ramp up much more slowly than in Europe) - so it should not be beyond universities to make the few exceptions that need to be made to allow these prodigious children to flourish. It costs them nothing to oblige and support these children - but there is a very high price to pay for their societies, in not supporting them: a price of wasted gifts.

So, as ever, I suspect, with any parent of a prodigious child, I am still seeking a better academic fit for his needs. The matter becomes more urgent over time - for as his abilities grow, so does the demand in having to meet them. At some point, it may not be tenable to do so alone without the backing of an appropriate institution. We will see. In the meantime, I will do what I have always done: whatever I can.

(If you would like to read more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Tiarnan, seventeen months, or Fintan, four years and no months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Educational testing and intellectual performance

Why do education systems test their students? Usually they want to find out "how good" their students are. Does this work? Does constant testing improve the students, or does it prevent them from learning?

I have written about the problem of over-testing in the UK (and Singapore, indirectly), recently. My contention was that obsessive testing of students would get in the way of their real education, by focussing the students upon an ever smaller set of knowledge, driving them away from a true pursuit of education and learning. I offered this as an opinion yet, I have found evidence, now, that it is true. The more you test, the less you get, in terms of student development. England tests their state school students over 70 times between the age of 7 and school leaving age. What effect does this have on the students?

Well, a recent study of over 10,000 British students tested at the age of 11 and 12 for cognitive performance has produced alarming results. The research was performed by Michael Shayer of King's College London and published in the British Journal of Educational Psychology. The study showed that in their cognitive and conceptual development, today's 11 or 12 year olds from Britain were TWO or THREE years BEHIND their counterparts from 1990. This means that, in real terms, young British children have regressed intellectually compared to children of 15 years before: their actual ability to think and reason is impaired by comparison. Think about what a three year difference at age 12 means: it is a 25% difference - which, if it were IQ, would indicate a 25 IQ point difference. This is a HUGE drop in intellectual function, for a whole nation.

In the same period, in which the drop occurred, Britain became a test-mad nation. The students were subject to endless tests beginning at seven on their performance on every little matter of schooling. The idea behind the tests was to guarantee that students were adhering to "standards" - but what, actually has happened? In real terms, Britain's kids have got stupid, by comparison to their former intellectual performance. Is there a connection? Does excessive testing drive children away from true education? Does it prevent children from actually growing intellectually? This situation in Britain would seem to support my understanding that excessive testing will get in the way of true education.

When I was in school, there was very little testing other than formal examinations such as O level and A level. So, too, the children from my generation were demonstrably smarter than the children of today's generation: is there a direct connection? Were we freer to think and grow and learn owing to less testing? In my heart, I feel so. I was one of many students who studied because we loved to think and to learn. I was not studying because there was a test coming up - because there just WASN'T a test coming up. It was a better way to learn, I think.

The research threw up many alarming results. One was that the gender gap had vanished. Girl students were traditionally better than boys, being more studious and less disruptive by nature - but that advantage has gone, too, with girls showing great deterioration in intellectual performance.

In the new Britain, one in six British people do not have the literacy skills expected of an average 11 year old. You would think that was bad enough - but it gets worse: half of British people do not have basic functional numeracy. That's right: 50% of all British people today are not sufficiently numerate.

What is the real world effect of such educational and cognitive declines? Well a review by Leitch, found that a 1 % increase in literacy in a population, resulted in a 1.5% increase in GDP, for the nation - and a 2.5% increase in labour force productivity. Thus even slight changes in the educational standards of a nation have noticeable real world effects on the standard of living and quality of life, in that nation.

Education should be about learning and growing, in all the ways that are suited to the child. As soon as it becomes about bureaucratic measurement - as it long has become in Britain and some other nations - then, I contend, that is a nation that will fall into decline - because in such a test obsessed environment there is no time for, or attention given to, real learning, real growth, real insight.

The Shayer study is strong evidence that education conducted in the way it is conducted in Britain - as an incessant round of tests that bedevils pupils throughout their education - simply does not work to bring about real intellectual growth. Britain's pupils are now demonstrably stupid compared to their forebears of only fifteen years ago. A drop of 25% in cognitive performance is a massive decline. It is almost the difference between a moderately gifted student and an average one. It is a huge disparity.

It is time, for all countries that are obsessed with testing and measurement of their students, to throw that aside in favour of a classroom that favours true learning by the student: deep, exploratory, insightful learning that will bring forth the intellectual leaders of the future. The alternative is national decline and failure.

Will Britain choose to do anything about this situation? I think not, for one can read in the reaction of their media the true attitude towards the situation: indifference. Not one single main British media outlet covered this story about the Shayer study. Only one magazine, the Spectator, wrote of it. All the British newspapers ignored it. So, where does this leave the British people? They are left ignorant of the true state of decline in the mental quality of their children and in the education they have been receiving. Yet, these children are the future of Britain. Based on their decline in ability, at age 11 or 12, one can safely say that in twenty to thirty years, when this generation of children are in their thirties and forties, that Britain will have declined significantly as a nation. It cannot be otherwise, when the quality of minds on which the nation is built has declined so precipitously. It is all very well to be indifferent to the situation now, but in two or three decades the price of that indifference will be paid - by the whole nation.

So, nations everywhere, should focus on an education system that truly allows their children to learn - and not binds them up in an incessant bureaucratic requirement for testing. Britain made that latter choice - and the results are very clear: a generation of dumb kids - and a generation of dumb adults to come.

(If you would like to read of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

The tyranny of tests

England is not what it was, in many ways. Yet, only recently have I become aware of one way in which it has changed since my childhood.

I now live in Singapore and, having observed Singapore for a few years, I had come to the conclusion that Singaporeans are test mad. There is a test for everything and nothing is trusted unless it has been tested. I had come to view it as somewhat pathological - in the sense that it is far too prevalent to be healthy. Yet, that was before I came to know of the recent situation in the UK. If anything it is worse, there.

A UK student is now expected to take over 70 official tests from the age of 7 to the time they leave school. These are not, as far as I am aware, optional, in-house school testing, but obligatory mandatory, national testing.

I only became aware of this situation, not having lived in the UK since my children were born (apart from one stint), because of a proposal to end all such testing, that some brave political soul has tabled. It would probably be a good thing for British children were it to be enacted - but it is extremely unlikely, for the leaders of the educational establishment were quoted as being fully behind the test-taking tradition.

Let us look at what these tests do to children. With so many of them, there is forever another test coming up. There is ever the need to prepare for the next test. The focus of the students is on passing the test. There is never time or space to look around and see subjects in greater breadth or depth - there is only that which is in the test, in their minds. The consequence of an education that is nothing but a long series of tests is that the child is never truly educated. They are trained to do tests - and that is all. I have seen this phenomenon at work in Singapore which produces very good test takers...but not truly well-educated people: their minds have been too constricted by constant testing. The same unhealthy pressures have been constricting the minds of whole generations of British children while I wasn't looking. I don't imagine that it will lead to the national prosperity (and all the other things that politicians seek) that they imagine. Rather, it will lead to a nation unable to hold its place where once it reigned supreme.

Nothing should be allowed to stand in the way of the education of children - and most certainly not an official burden of over 70 tests per school career. How ridiculous.

(If you would like to read of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and six months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, three, and Tiarnan, sixteen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted children and gifed adults in general. Thanks.)

Britain rejects its child prodigies

Child prodigies are rare children - so very few children are able to master adult domains while still of tender years. One would have thought that any developed society would treasure, therefore, the few of these children that are found in their midst.

Not so Britain, the only country that I can think of that calls itself Great. I used to live in Britain and there is much that I liked about it...but there is one thing that cannot be liked by anyone with an unbiased mind: an education system that excludes child prodigies.

Recently, in the British media, a case was discussed of a child prodigy, aged 13, who had just completed his A levels, who found every door, in every University, closed to him. Not a single University in Britain would accept a child prodigy. Each said he was too young to be allowed to learn in their hallowed halls. Well, wait just one minute: isn't that the whole point of child prodigies, that they are younger than usual, at any developmental stage? What kind of country is it that SPECIFICALLY discriminates against child prodigies? Incidentally, what kind of future does such a country have? Reason would suggest that an adult genius is more likely to be drawn from the ranks of child prodigies. A single child prodigy could grow up to be a genius who changes the world. Yet, Britain discriminates against child prodigies. No child prodigy is now allowed to proceed to University until they are aged 17. That is rather too late for a thirteen year old A level candidate - and others like him. What is a child prodigy to do in all those wasted years, while his age-mates play catch-up? Grow bored? Lose interest in academia? Forget all that he has learnt? Give up? Is that what Britain wants...for all its child prodigies to give up and start behaving like all the other kids and take a slow measured pace to their learning?

It is sad that education should be so partial. Education should be a right for all. Yet Britain is actively denying an education to its, admittedly few, child prodigies.

Any child prodigy in this situation should just leave Britain for somewhere else - for one's intellectual growth should not wait for a country to wake up to what it is doing. If such a child prodigy then decides to stay and make a life in the new country - then so be it. Any country which denies child prodigies an education does not deserve any better.

The Universities would say that it is not their fault. A new law requires them to screen all their staff for their suitability to teach children under 17. Yet, there is a sign of great laziness here - and essential stinginess. The Universities have been presented with a choice: either screen their staff for their appropriateness (ie safety) in teaching young children - or don't take such children. Rather than make the effort to screen their staff (and shouldn't they be screened ANYWAY, since a staff member who is a danger to a thirteen year old may very well be a danger to eighteen year olds, too, wouldn't you think?) every University in Britain has chosen the other path: simply to reject all candidates under seventeen automatically. Not one University in Britain can be bothered to make the effort of making its institution accessible to the youngest and brightest students.

So, whose fault is it then: the lawmakers or the Universities? The lawmakers made the law - and they may have meant well by doing so - but the effect of the law is to place a barrier in front of Universities that none of them wish to climb. Yet, to achieve a fair education system open to all, all that the Universities have to do is screen their staff for their safety with children. None of them have chosen to do so. Thus, the Universities of Britain have universally chosen to exclude child prodigies from being educated at all. Those who are best at learning are not allowed to learn, if they live in Britain.

Maybe Britain was "Great" once...but by excluding child prodigies it is not adding to its greatness, but diminishing itself as a nation and quite possibly harming its future. You see, not many children grow up to be geniuses - and it only takes one more genius to make the difference between a great nation - and an also ran. Britain has shown what it wants its future to be: a bit like its present, only worse - Britain, in choosing to exclude child prodigies, also chooses to be a second-rate nation.

What does all of this fuss mean? It means that British Universities are firstly, too lazy to ensure the safety of the children in their midst - and secondly care not at all about the idea that education should be open to all. It is quietly astonishing that EVERY University in Britain, should have chosen to exclude child prodigies, because they would have to do something to be able to accept them. Shame on you all.

(If you would like to read about my scientific child prodigy son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, seven years and two weeks, who doesn't live in Britain and therefore may very well find a University to accept him at the appropriate time, then please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html for a tour. I also write of child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)